Spread of Christianity and Islam

¶ … Spread of Christianity and Islam

As Rit Nosotro points out, in the area known as the Fertile Crescent, being ancient Mesopotamia bounded by the River Euphrates and the Tigris, two of the most important and influential world religions came into existence with one preceding the other by some six hundred years. These two major religions, Christianity and Islam, spread from the Middle East and "during their first two hundred years of expansion made considerable progress" with each religion having fundamental differences related to this expansion ("The Spread of Christianity and Islam," Internet). But both of these religions share one very important aspect, namely, that they are based upon the lives and philosophies of two men -- Jesus Christ (Christianity) and the prophet Mohammad (Islam).

Undoubtedly, the underlying philosophies and teachings of Christianity and Islam greatly aided in their global expansion due to several factors. First of all, the core beliefs of Christianity which includes Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church, centers upon the person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is outlined in the New Testament. Thus, "through the action and influence of the Holy Spirit, Christians believe that the words of the Holy Bible are the words of God Himself" (Corbett, 46) which allows all believers to have a close and personal relationship with Him. Similarly, the core beliefs of Islam are based upon "the oneness and unity of Allah and the prophethood of Muhammad" (Corbett, 234) as outlined in the Holy Quran which contains the books of Allah and the sacred writings of Christianity and Judaism. It also mandates that all Muslims must believe in the prophets of Allah, such as Abraham, Moses and David, the Hebrew prophets as found in the Old Testament. Therefore, these beliefs could easily be shared among all believers which in part helped both religions to expand into all regions of the world with Christianity emerging after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, circa 35 a.D., and Islam following the death of Mohammad in 632 a.D.

Before the emergence of Islam, Christianity, with the assistance of its many believers, had managed to spread from the Middle East in what is now Israel to many regions of Europe, where it soon became the official religion in the form of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. But in the beginning, Christianity was somewhat limited to the city of Jerusalem in which the established church "initially preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ only to the Jews," (Nosotro, Internet), but after Christians began to be persecuted for their beliefs by the leaders of Judaism, many believers "scattered to the surrounding countryside of Judea and Samaria" and eventually spread their beliefs further east and west through preaching and reading from the Gospels.

Sometime around the early years of the 7th century a.D., Islam, much like Christianity, had begun to spread far beyond the confines of the Middle East, due to the teachings of Muhammad who claimed that "he had received divine revelations from God that called him to preach a new religion" (Nosotro, Internet) called Islam which means "the peace of one who submits wholly to God or Allah" (Corbett, 232). At first like the Christians, those who practiced Islam (i.e., the Muslims) were persecuted for their beliefs which resulted in Islam failing to spread much beyond the city of Mecca, but as Muhammad gained many converts, Islam began to spread to other regions of the Middle East, mostly due to the teachings in the Holy Quran which taught that all men are equal in the eyes of Allah and are brothers in God.

The spread of Christianity and Islam was also due to a number of factors related to socio-economic and political conditions within the Middle East. For example, when Christian churches were established in some of the major cities within and outside of what is now Israel circa the 4th century a.D., many of the believers were very poor and poverty-stricken and were searching for ways to relieve their suffering, and once these believers decided to move into the countryside, Christian beliefs and principles followed with them and their families, thus bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the lives of non-believers, most of whom were also poor and were seen by many as social outcasts. In this respect, during the first two centuries following the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the spread of Christianity "was essentially an urban phenomenon" but soon evolved into a rural religion. In addition, many Christians were persecuted for their political beliefs, meaning that they did not condone the actions of the official Romanized/Latin church which quickly led to the development of Eastern Orthodoxy in Central Europe (Nosotro, Internet).